A Moment
by Amberlin
Summary: Christine visits her father's grave a week before she it to be married. While there, she gets the chance at a proper goodbye. Oneshot, first Phantom story, so be kind!


Why was she here?

She sighed, eyeing the mist that escaped her mouth in a small eruption of silver steam, her head cradled on her arm, her hand fondling the rosary beads that lay next to her.

She had nothing to say to him, which was odd considering how desperate she'd been to come and talk to him.

The looming tomb of Gustave Daae stared down at her prone form expectantly.

_What do you need, child?_

She didn't know. _That _was probably a good place to start, but still her mouth didn't obey. It was terribly uncomfortable there on the grave steps but she was too tired and too cold to move even for comfort's sake.

She recalled those days long ago when her mother had abandoned them. She'd sit in the wings of the theatres and listen to her father's concerts, resting her eyes and floating on each note and key of his Stradivarius like a soft ripple of sound.

And then his violin stopped, and her world came to a shrieking and discordant end as he left her to look for him forever.

She was to be married in a week. Perhaps she could tell him that. But she didn't want to put it into words; Too afraid she'd hear the defeat and flatness of her own voice and be forced to recognize the reason.

She was going to marry the man she loved, but she was not going to marry the man she wanted.

_There's a difference between what you want and what you need . . . and there is a difference between love and passion, _her mind chided.

That was all it was, really, in the long run. Passion. Not love. She wondered then, why it was so hard to stop dwelling on him . . . to stop thinking of him.

And she thought of him often. So often that Raoul was obliged to shake her from her thoughts on more than a few occasions. She could picture him now, those bland blue eyes looking at her with such patronizing concern and protectiveness.

He had told her that she didn't need to visit her father's grave any longer, just as she had not when . . . _he . . . _was in her life. Because now she had Raoul . . . another surrogate, though a better one, of course.

_I'll guide you and comfort you, _that was his support.

She had nothing to say to him. She had nothing to say to her father.

She really only wanted to sleep and dream. _He _was there in her dreams, just as before. He was everywhere . . . from the red poplin of her dressing gown to the white iridescence of the moon. She could see him in everything, all her senses honed on him. He had touched them all.

She wanted to hate him for it . . . for spreading his warm hands across her collarbone and down the delicate underside of her chin. For burning his caress into her mind until she could summon it on will.

But she couldn't hate him. In his den, she'd told him she cried tears of hate for him because he'd deceived her. It was only something she threw between them to make it easier to walk away. She never hated him, even as he tightened that cord around her fiancé's neck, she couldn't bring herself to hate him. He'd been everything to her as a child. He hadn't meant to mislead her, when it had all begun. She was merely a girl, nothing to him as a man, but he'd needed someone to talk to, someone to _be _something to, and in his own desperate way he'd loved her even then. He'd comforted her, consoled her with a few words and a harmless lie.

Raoul would never understand. He was not there in the chapel that first time she'd heard him singing, low and melancholic. He had not heard the loveliness of his voice or the startled silence that had followed after she addressed him in what bordered on reverent awe.

_Angel?_

Raoul had not heard the way his voice broke when he responded to her pitiful and childish elation.

_I've been waiting for you, angel. _

_. . . I've waited for you as well, child. _

She wondered now how old he'd been then. Where he had been. Why had he been singing to himself? She wondered now that she knew what he was . . . only a man.

What had occurred after was perhaps beyond their control. He loved her, and that love merely shifted as she grew, as he realized that their game could not go on forever. She knew now that perhaps he was far wiser than she, that he knew that there was coming a time soon when she'd would either be his completely . . . or he would lose her forever.

She was all he had, and for a great while, he was all she had.

He hadn't cared about having anything else, he only needed her.

And really, he hadn't asked for much . . . just her whole world.

She exhaled hard, watching her breath fog the black surface of her rosary beads, and raised her head. Her face was frozen where it had laid against the stone.

She brought her beads to her chest and fingered them, prepared to offer a prayer.

The wind stirred.

She knew instantly that he was there. Her blood hummed with fire, as it always did in his presence. She stared at the pale veins in her wrist, her breath quickening of its own accord.

"Where are you?" She asked to the wind. The darkness answered her with silence.

"Where are you?" She repeated, louder, forcing her voice to be strong, to choke any fear he could hear within her voice . . . any emotion at _all _that he could hear.

"I am here."

A warmth flooded through her from toes to belly, from belly to face.

"Where?" She glanced around, seeing only the darkness and gloom. He was everywhere with his voice.

He didn't answer.

She felt no fear. She should, she knew. She could hear Raoul in her mind, yelling and prodding her to flee from him, from _this thing. _But she didn't wish to go. She wanted to hear him again, wanted to see him again. And even the thought that he would take her . . . didn't frighten her as much as it should have.

The stillness stretched on. She stared at her rosary beads, clutching them so tightly the beads hurt the pads of her fingers. She wanted to distract herself from him.

He was still there.

"I come to give my felicitations." He offered in that jeering tone he'd used when he suffocated Raoul. _Monsieur, I bid you welcome_.

"Do you follow me?"

The wind stirred, as if it sighed on his behalf. "No."

She didn't bother to insult him by accusing him of lying. It seemed ironic, but she didn't consider him a liar. In his own way, he _was _her angel of music. He had given her music, just as her father had said.

Besides, her engagement had been in every paper in Paris, some with not-so-flattering remarks of her station. She glanced around again, searching for him, feeling desperate suddenly. Her legs stuck to the ice frosted stone, but all she could think of was _him_.

He was near her yet she couldn't touch him. It made her want to weep. "Where are you?" It was strange how quickly he could revert her back into that young girl, needful and scared, clinging to the angel who'd saved her from her solitude. It wasn't his fault, she would always be that girl.

And perhaps he would always be that man, needful and scared, clinging to the young girl who'd saved him from his solitude.

"Where are you?" She repeated, growing agitated at his game.

"I am where I belong."

_In the dark, _the mist seemed to whisper, _in the dark where you shut me. _

He belonged with her. They belonged together. She understood now, she understood the first night away from the opera house, the first night he was not there, and _would _not be there. Even her fear of him was better than knowing he was gone from her.

"As are you, I presume." He stated flatly, when no response seemed forthcoming, in that oddly emotionless tone he could assume even after the most violent of outbursts.

"I am happy." She hissed vehemently, more to herself than him.

"You should be, he's a . . . " he trailed off, his lyric baritone subsiding from mockery to resignation. She could hear him exhale, long and hard. Her heart sped, her chest burned, goose bumps assaulted her arms.

She could remember his scent, in the bowels of the opera house, she had smelled him. The sweet honey of his breath, the sandalwood and vanilla of his elegant neck. She could smell it now as the wind swept him to her, flowing into her mouth and nose in a dizzying burst of remembrance.

She turned to where the air stirred. In the dark black curtain of night, she could finally make out his form. Standing by a large saint, his head bowed, his skin glowing in some torturing, ironic, angelic way.

"Will you forget me?" He whispered.

A tidal wave seemed to crash inside her, instantly rising up in a terrific sob. She caught it, holding her tongue tightly to the roof of her mouth. She could not forget him, his eyes, his hands, his voice, his words, sweet and thick with love and need and something she did not quite understand at the time.

"I know your face." She whispered. _It haunts me._

"I'm sorry." He spat, mistaking her words for scorn, thinking once again that she flouted his flaws. He was always mistaking her.

"_No!" _She wouldn't allow him to this time, she would say what she meant. She lifted her face to the heavens, where his voice seemed to be descending from . . . where his voice always descended from even in her dreams . . . her wonderful and terrifying dreams.

"I love your face . . . your voice. It follows me, I hear its echos in the night, in the day, _everywhere_. Sometimes I think I'm mad, that you're not real, that I've made you up because I need . . . maybe I am mad. How could I forget my angel?" She could feel the wetness of her tears sliding down the side of her face, to her ear, and detouring to run down her jaw. She didn't bother to wipe them away.

"I'm sorry." He repeated, his voice softened and resigned this time. "Christine . . ." He spoke her name as if it were a supplication, a question with no answer.

When he spoke again, it was with considerable control. "I won't see you again."

She knew he was trying to promise her, to reassure her that she would remain unmolested. A little part of her seemed to die at his words, though, and her world came to another shrieking and discordant end.

"Where are you going?" She couldn't control the desperateness of her words. They rang through the air, just as they had when she'd spoken them to her father on his death bed.

"Heavenwards, child." He answered morbidly, "Just as we all are."

She didn't know what he meant. She wanted to reprimand him for his cowardice. She knew he needed her to be strong enough to speak just once. But who was she to talk? She was doing the same as he . . . murdering herself from the inside by marrying, by settling, by letting someone _guide_ her.

By walking into a life where she would never think for herself again.

And that's what she wanted.

When she didn't answer, he spoke again, his voice dark and rich. "Perhaps one day . . . we'll share paradise, Christine."

She blushed and fingered her ring. It was terribly presumptuous of him to assume they would ever share anything since she was soon to be another man's. But she didn't protest. She thought of that paradise, with perfect melodies and words, with love and touches so sweet they tasted like pomegranates.

"Christine . . . I love you." He suddenly sobbed, breaking her from her thoughts.

She turned her head to him and stared at the snow by her side. Her mouth fell open at his words, spoken so much as they were on that night she'd walked out on him. Her own voice crept up the back of her throat like so many tickling, sickening feathers.

But when they escaped, it was merely a croak, a choked sob. She threw her head to the ground and her hands to her mouth, her rosary beads pressing into the sensitive skin of her gums as she wept uncontrollably.

The wind stirred again. She wondered if he would come to her, comfort her as he had so many times before. Perhaps even sing for her.

"Goodnight." He said instead. And then he was gone, evanesced into a beautiful light cloud of sadness and music.

_I love you, _the darkness whispered back, an eternity later.


End file.
